Portraits and Scooby Doo together on a sunny Sunday afternoon

   

Sarah Rahal working on posing with her friend Scoob 

I've been pretty lucky this semester.

     Sarah Rahal, the lead photographer and multimedia editor of Wayne State University’s The South End, invited me along when she took the photos of the newspaper’s editor for the print edition. I was excited especially seeing as this would be a great way to learn how to properly take portraits and see how The South End puts together its’ print editions.

     The theme was growing up and the editors chose a childhood photo to re-create. On Sunday, Sarah along with Tim Carroll and Alex Franzen walked to the McGregor Memorial Conference Center building and set up outside in the courtyard. We had fun, took a bunch of different photos with Alex looking like a serious farmer and Tim looking like a superhero with a juice box.

     Tuesday I met with Sarah in The South End’s office to recreate her photo again because she didn’t like the outfit she wore in the first photo. Again, we had fun trying to position her and the other staff present getting their photos done. Plenty of laughs and climbing on chairs and tables to get the best photo possible.

     Number one lesson learned is it takes a lot of adjusting and a lot of patience to get the final portrait you want. I took l plenty of each of the editor and all of them have their merits but only one of each would I consider a good image that could be printed.

A behind the scenes look as Sarah, Alex and Tim work on Tim's photo.

Alex Franzen in one of the few serious shots before laughing.

Sports, scoreboards I do not understand, continuous shutters...oh my!

The Wayne State University men's baseball team takes the field for a game against Grand Valley State University.

Kyle Zimmerman prepares to hit the ball.

Bradley Baldwin touches third base before continuing to home.

     I don't do the whole sports thing.
     I was raised in a hockey house, and that was it. Sports have never held an interest for me, so trust the quote, “This assignment is going to hurt” is true when I speak them.
     Wayne State men’s baseball started on April 3 with a double-header, and the next day was the same. I planned to attend one of the days, weather depending, and had to ask a 17-year-old coworker what a double-header was.

     Yeah, I’m that bad.

     Shooting the actual game wasn’t bad, though I applaud the people who do this for a living. I had my camera set to continuous because I knew I wouldn’t get any good shots if I relied on my finger to move quickly. I walked away with 749 photos, which was, in my opinion, too many. I’m a rookie and it shows.

     Getting the right position to shoot was one of the biggest obstacles I had to tackle. I moved around and finally found a solid position to the right of home plate. The only issue was I had to hold my camera very steady because I was shooting at the fence and had to keep that little fact low key. Some of the pictures were ruined, at least to me, because I shifted. You can see the edge of the fence in the corners.

     I wouldn’t say this was a bad experience but this was definitely difficult. Finding a sports game during this time frame was the hardest part. My hometown teams were in Benton Harbor, Mich. for state finals, the Wayne State basketball teams were in Florida, so I had to wait until April for the Wayne State baseball team to come to campus. By the time I was at the game and taking the photos, I think I was so relieved to finally be taking the photos that being at a sports game that I don’t understand didn’t even bother me.

      For the record, I had to text my dad to ask him how to read the scoreboard. I seriously don’t see the point of keeping the hits on the board if it doesn’t count toward the score. It’s distracting for weak sport minds like myself.

Would you like to see my First Amendment pass?

Taken from archives.gov,

“Amendment I

     Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

     As a budding journalist in the spring of media transitions, it’s important to think about what rights I have. I have taken the dreaded History and Law of Journalism course at Wayne State, read and re-read the Michigan Media Law, been quizzed on and tested on current law and important trials, but that doesn’t mean it has fully sunk in.

     From a young age, you learn what your basic rights are as a United States citizen. Freedom of religion, press, speech, etc. are pounded into your head in elementary school. A seven-year-old doesn’t comprehend what those things mean; she regurgitates it in hopes she wins the prized Hersey Kiss given to the students who can recite them all. This is what it boils down to: We all are allowed the freedom to pray to whomever, ask questions to whomever, and project our opinions to whomever.

     What does this mean for me? Am I chopped liver because I want to make a career out of what everyone is allowed to do, as written in our Bill of Rights?

     I think the main difference is in our code of ethics and need for truth. Any person can ask a mayor if they are having an affair with the treasurer and will most likely be served denial, but it's a different story when a journalist asks the right people the right questions to find the right evidence before publicizing the truth. We’re not out to libel the mayor, but rather to make it known he’s having an affair with a staff member during working hours. We seek the truth rather than the juicy gossip because knowledge is power and the more we can inform the audience, the more the audience will look to us when things begin to go south.

     For me, the First Amendment has come to be more of a spiritual press pass. We all have it, we don’t carry it on a lanyard around our necks and we all know it's there. 

Frustrating feature photography is ruining my Friday

A student pass by the bulletin board without a glance.

Students design and create cell towers out of pasta and marshmallows.

Katie Ulrich, a mechanical engineer, demonstrates how to make lip balm.     

     The Danto Engineering Development Center was overcome on Saturday with young girls wanting to learn more about science and engineering. The eighth annual Girls' Engineering Exploration is the Detroit Professional Section of Society of Women Engineers (SWE) 
     The event, known as GEE, had been in the works for four months, and was made possible by donations from Toyota, DTE Energy, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, Autoliv and General Motors.

     Ann Dancy, vice president of outreach and part of the Chrysler Institute of Engineering, says that the GEE is held at Wayne State University because the target group is young intercity girls, and  “(it) makes no sense to bus them out to Auburn Hills,” where the Chrysler Group LLC is based.

     The free event for Detroit Public Schools girls grades fourth through sixth featured activities such as a fashion show geared toward learning about proper safety gear while working in the field, making lip balm, and creating cell towers out of pasta and marshmallows.

     A hundred-and-thirty-six girls were registered for the event, but Dancy says many trickled in throughout the day. This was clear during the fashion show in the auditorium as students finished lunch while DTE Energy volunteers demonstrated proper safety attire while working in the field.

     The GEE proved to be a fun and hands-on approach to teach young girls about safety, science and engineering. All girls left with a backpack full of school supplies and different science experiment ideas.

     This assignment was fun at first, then became incredibly frustrating. I anticipated taking around 75 photos while at the GEE event but walked away with close to 200. Most of the photos were from me trying to get the lighting correct. The in vogue phrase "the struggle is real" was on repeat in my head as I struggled to find the correct setting for the different lighting situations. 

     What was even more aggravating was trying to get the unplanned feature photo. I go into chaos mode when I don't have a plan. I am limited to one day a week when I am able to wander around but with midterms and finishing projects before spring break I had a hard time finding the time to go out and get photos.
     I was walking through State Hall and saw how many people were passing by the board without even looking at it and I know if it was the same scene 15 years ago people would be stopping to check what events were happening around campus. 
     In my New Media Theory class, we've discussed the dying forms of media, and watching the old stare longing at people with the new "it" media passing them by. I purposefully was trying to make that discussion come alive when I took the picture in front of the bulletin board because I wanted you to see the light from the cell phone screen and the clear motion of someone passing by the stationary board. 
     This whole assignment made me realize taking quality feature photos is so much more difficult than I even imagined.

Captions capture the captured image

     If there is one thing I will take away from learning about captions it’s the need you feel to read the stories. We’re all human. We have short attention spans. If we see a story that is 750 words without a photo then we will likely stay away. If that same story in a different paper had two photos with a caption that had the basic who, what, why, when and where included then we would be more inclined to read the story.

     Captions, to me, act as a brief summary for the story. If I’m unsure whether I want to read a story or pass over it I default to looking at the photo and reading the caption. Does it sound interesting? Does it sound scandalous? Does it sound heroic? Does it sound like I’ll be crying by the end?

     Captions give us the quick information we want and they are dependent not on the story but the photo. If you have a story about rescue dogs but a photo of a paw print in the snow chances are you won’t have the greatest caption to pair with the story and photo. Captions capture not only the photo but the story as well.

     The lesson learned? Try to always keep the story in the front of your mind in order to get a great photo for a story because it can make or break who wants to read the story.

Calmly remove finger from the button and step away from the camera

The trees in Elizabeth Park come alive at dusk.

     I’ve come to the conclusion there’s way more to think about when taking a photo than your zoom, lighting and subject. Before watching "Language of the Image," I have always been keen on snapping photos of dogs doing cute things and beautiful landscapes. A wintery park was my personal gold mine and ultimate death of a 32 GB memory card. 

     Now? Not so much.

Empty stables wait for warmer weather to be filled with ponies.

     I went to Elizabeth Park in Wyandotte because I knew there were snow covered bridges and trails full of naked trees sheathing their modesty with a clear layer of ice. I had forgotten the scale of the park until I had walked roughly 50 feet ahead and turned to see my car looked like a pea on an entrée plate. I took a few photos but each time I raised the shutter a bit higher to 1/2000 in order to get the shadows of the trees in the photo. Not only did it make the road look like a cement zebra but it made the natural light during the golden hour on the trees more intense.

Only a snowmobile can access this "service drive." 

      When I drove around the park I laughed at the irony of a pony park. Unfortunately, the permanent sign stays year round as a tease to children waiting to get their pony ride but are forced to wait until the sunny summer months for their chance. I applied the rule of thirds when getting the sign and empty stables, set my shutter to 1/3200 and shifted around to get the perfect angle for the photo.

      As I was backtracking to my car I stopped because I felt lost. A sign standing in at least a foot of snow warned me to keep out because it was a service drive. Strange seeing as there was no drive. I kept the rule of thirds in mind when I took the photo and kicked my settings up a few notches to 1/1600 to keep the snow from getting over exposed and thus killing the irony of the photo. The natural light was glaring at me as I took the photo and the end result shows the shadows of the trees reaching out to me.

       I was sad I couldn’t find anything on my journey that would be considered graphic but I was happy with my trip through Elizabeth Park looking for ways to put our “Language of the Image” lesson to use. The exercise was fun, freezing and frustrating because I felt like a kid prancing around a winter wonderland trying to keep photo elements in mind before snapping any pictures. I won't lie, a few times I had to stop myself from taking photos of frolicking squirrels.